The snow storm arrived in New York overnight and this city responded beautifully... I walked several blocks from my hotel to the
Scope Art Fair and the most dangerous event proved to be the New Yorkers with huge umbrellas and looking down to avoid the fierce cold wind as a slushly snow fell... as a result of the Venturi effect caused by the tall buildings, there were very fierce winds at every corner as well.
When I was a kid in Brooklyn, my high school was in Long Island City in Queens, and I used to spend over an hour in the subway going to High School... I am sure that we had school "snow days" back then. but frankly, I don't remember ever been off from school because of snow.
When I got to Scope I discovered that the the old post office's roof had been leaking above my neighbor's space (
Fitzroy Knox from New York) and the two pretty gallerists were bravely securing work as the Scope crew attacked the problem.
And I must give kudos to the Scope crew.
As I stood watching them tarp over the leaks and then build a roof under the leaking area, I was thinking to myself "These union guys are really on the ball here... they might just give some of these New York unions a good name if they are not careful..."
Later I found out that these were not the union guys responding to the barely avoided disaster, but in fact the Scope crew, and they deserve a superbly earned "Well Done!"
The Scope director (Sonja Hofstetter) was on the spot and working the issue, and the tall good looking guy (who looks a little like a young Jim Carey) in charge of the work crew, was so nit picky about making sure that it was a perfect job, that even after the space had been re-roofed, he actually had a guy come over and tape the edges and re-paint the whole thing.
In cases like this, the response of an art fair's crew to unplanned close calls like this is the key to avoiding disaster and these guys had half a dozen people on the job right away and it showed in the manner and professionalism with which they responded and the final solution to the problem.
Later on I found out that the skinny guy directing the response to the leak is in fact the owner of Scope (Alexis Hubshman), which makes this an even cooler response, as there's nothing like a hands-on boss who gets his hands dirty to make things happen.
Check out the picture to the left - these guys essentially re-roofed the leaky area and made it look good.
Great job Scopers!
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